Remembrance
by UnlimitedDreams
Summary: Kagome returned to the future after the battle. She is unable to pass through the well any longer. She thinks that Sesshoumaru has died in the last battle and thus locks away her emotions. Until one day, she meets a familiar looking stranger.


**Remembrance**

_W__ill you remember me?_

Kagome shivered, despite the warmth. She mentally shook her head at the echo, refusing to remember. If she remembered, she would lose all control. If she remembered, she would not be able to forget, to go on with life.

Why had she thought about it now, so many years after that day had occurred? Why now? Why did she have to think of that, when she had denied herself from doing so for so long?

She shook her head physically this time. It would do her no good now to wonder why she had thought of those words, for as she pondered, she remembered. She would remember the day that she so desperately wanted to forget.

Swallowing hard, she pushed the thought from her mind.

Kagome had seldom talked since that day. She had returned to her own time. The well wouldn't let her through to the feudal era any longer. She forced herself not to remember. If she did, her already fragile state of mind would break. Remembering would bring sorrow, and with sorrow weakness, and she could not allow that to occur. She sighed, biting her lip. If only she hadn't been so weak...

Kagome laughed softly, aloud, causing a young man standing not ten feet away to glance at her. She didn't notice. She was actually doing what she had tried so hard to prevent. She was remembering...

But…

Would she remember?

_The battle… his cry…Kagome!_

She felt her eyes sting. What was that? Was she actually beginning to _cry_?

"Hello?"

Kagome felt her heart skip a beat. That deep baritone voice was so much like the one that she knew, the one that had spoken to her in her memories just moments before. The young girl slowly turned towards the speaker, and felt emotions that she hadn't felt for a long, long time. Not since _he_ died.

The young man that stood before her had long silver hair. His eyes were the purest shade of molten gold. Her breath caught in her throat. He looked so much like, like _him_. She swallowed hard, her eyes glistening with unshed tears.

"Are you alright?" he asked in the voice that she had once refused to allow to haunt her. "You aren't crying, right?"

She shook her head, her muscles tense. Her heart beat almost painfully.

He chuckled, and her heart stopped again: that was the chuckle of the one that had left her, it seemed so long ago…

No! She wouldn't think of him! She couldn't think of him!

A tear fell, and she turned her head away in shame. After so many years of trying to become stronger, to not be a burden, she had shown weakness again. And worse still, it was in front of a stranger.

"What's wrong?" he soothed, and she shook her head, her throat too tight to manage words. "Did something bad happen?"

To hear those words in _his_ voice was too much for Kagome. Trembling all over, she turned and fled.

Her tears fell unbidden, sparkling under the sunlight. That voice… Why did he have to have that voice? _His_ voice. The voice of the one she loved...The one whom she would never see again...

She had thought, once, long ago, that she would never cry again. She thought that her tears had dried up long ago. When she had cried on that battlefield.

She must not be weak. Weakness meant death. Her chest tightened as she choked back a mournful cry. How could everything that she had built up so carefully be torn down by an imaginary voice from her memory and a stranger? Her weakness caused his death. She must not be weak anymore!

But the voice had been _his_, and that man had looked so similar… His eyes, his hair, his voice...

She ran towards the Goshinboku. She would rest there for the night, where her last link to the feudal era was. If any sign of weakness showed, only she would know. She collapsed at the base of the tree as the memories flooded her mind.

_The attack… It had happened so quickly. There had been no time to escape… and yet she had…_

She shook her head violently, forcing herself to stop thinking.

She stopped, sighing. No matter what she did, she remembered and always would. After five years of hiding from the memories, Kagome allowed herself to remember.

Armed with the determination to face the past, Kagome tentatively thought back to that day. Surely just a little remembering wouldn't cause weakness, right?

_No one was quite sure when the battle started. All they knew was that it was the final battle. Her friends were there, fighting. Suddenly, tentacles shot at her. "Kagome!" Sesshoumaru called her name, trying to warn her. But there was no way for her to get out of the way in time. Sesshoumaru appeared before her so suddenly. He protected her from the attack…_

She swallowed. Should she continue remembering? But if she remembered, she would cry and then she would be weak. She could never be weak. She just couldn't. The price to pay for weakness was just too high.

"_Sesshoumaru!", she cried. He shouldn't have protected her. She should have died. _

Kagome held back her tears in frustration. Was she so weak as to not be able to control her own thoughts? Or did she honestly wish to remember and be weak?

_She saw him fall. She screamed…_

"No!" she cried, then realized that she had said that aloud.

Footsteps before her halted, then curiously came forward. She saw the man who so closely resembled Sesshoumaru. She looked at him in anger.

"Can't you leave me alone?" she shrilled, ashamed and furious that he should see her this way.

"It seems not," he said, eyes and voice gentle. "Come, there's no need to cry. Why don't you come and join me, and we can speak."

"I don't want to," she muttered angrily, embarrassed that he had seen her display weakness.

"Of course you do," he said simply, and she bit down her anger at the confidence in his voice. "I remind you of someone you once knew. I saw the way you looked at me back there."

"Yes, you do remind me of someone," she replied, finding herself suddenly able to trust this stranger. When she had promised herself not to show weakness, love and trust had been sealed up as well. "But…" She remembered… _Tears, desperation, fear…_

She shook her head, forcing the thoughts away. "He looked like you. But he had markings on his face."

The stranger's eyes glimmered in amusement. He sat down next to her.

When both were seated casually, he inquired: "You're obviously upset about something. Why won't you remember your past?"

That stung.

_She screamed. Light burst forth from her body. It closed around Naraku and he instantly disintegrated. The Shikon jewel floated back to her, now complete and purified. "I wish for all of you to be happy." The jewel vanished once the wish was made. It would never again be used for evil._

"I don't want to remember," Kagome whispered, voice pleading. She couldn't look at the other. "Why are you trying to make me? You don't even know me."

"That's a question you'll have to answer for yourself," was the quiet reply. She didn't realize how patient he was being with her. She didn't realize that a stranger had persuaded her to look back to that day. She could only remember.

_She was slowly being dragged towards the well. With the jewel gone, she couldn't stay in the feudal era any longer. She was unable to do anything but look at him, hopping that somehow, by some miracle, he would remain alive..._

The stranger before her was silent as he waited. Kagome did not look at him. Memories of that day, memories she had tried for so long to forget, fought so hard to forget, surged around her as she remembered.

_She had managed to grab hold of a tree, but she knew she couldn't hold on for long. She prayed for him to open his eyes, to speak to her. She wanted to hear his voice, even if it was for a short while... "Please, speak to me." she pleaded._

Kagome opened her eyes and looked down at her hands. To this day they reminded her of that day, when she had wanted to stay with him so desperately. She gulped, and closed her eyes. By this time, she had forgotten that she was not supposed to remember.

_Sesshoumaru opened his eyes. "Kagome..." he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. Kagome realised with horror that Naraku's poison was getting to him. It was eating away at his life. _

"_It'll be all right," he told her as tears rolled down her face. "We'll see each other again," he said gently. "Please, Kagome, go." _

"_I can't," she whispered, trying in vain to cling on to the tree. She realized that she couldn't do it. She was too weak. Her fingers were already losing their grip._

_He shook his head, telling her silently to go. He didn't want her to cry. "I'll be fine," he said, trying to convince her. "We'll meet again in your era." He paused then, seemingly not having enough strength to continue. Kagome made a wild effort to get to him. But the force pulling her was too strong... Then, he lifted his head..._

Kagome swallowed hard against the tightness of her throat, too frightened to remember what happened next. But it was not something she could pause, now that she had started it. The terrible memory continued in her mind, and she was helpless.

_He spoke… _

_His last words to her… _

"_Will you remember me?" _

"_Of course," she promised, eyes filled with tears. "I promise." _

_When she spoke those words, he closed his eyes. _

"But I didn't," Kagome whispered, eyes opening. "I didn't remember him." The stranger with golden eyes watched her, eyes still gentle as he waited. She did not see him. How long had she been remembering? The memories continued…

_She sat sobbing at the base of the well. He wouldn't survive to see her era. He was gone. She had lost all her friends and him as well. She had been weak, she hadn't been able to defend herself. She had been weak; her weakness had caused his death. He protected her, he had died because of her weakness. She could never be weak again. Since the memory brought pain and sorrow, and with it, tears, it was a weakness. She could never remember. She couldn't be weak. _

_And so… she had not remembered him like she had promised. _

Tears fell from Kagome's eyes, and she didn't care if the whole world saw them. She had betrayed Sesshoumaru. She had done so selfishly, breaking her promise to him. She had been weak and cowardly, she knew, by simply locking his memory away.

"I'm sorry Sesshoumaru," she whispered to the memory.

"I know," he replied. "I was just waiting for you to discover that on your own."

She gasped. Sesshoumaru!? Her eyes widened and she looked around. The only one there was the stranger with the golden eyes that looked so much like _his_. But Sesshouamru would never pretend to be a human… Then again, what had she expected? To see him come out from the well house?

"Did you say that?" she asked the stranger. "Because if you did, it wasn't funny."

"I know it isn't funny," he replied. "I wouldn't dare say it if it was." He looked her in the eye, his golden eyes intense. "You didn't remember me."

She choked back tears. He couldn't be! He just couldn't be! Sesshoumaru would never be a human. This stranger didn't have the markings that Sesshoumaru had.

"You can't be him," she said quietly. "He died long ago. This is not funny."

"Trust me; I know it's not funny." His voice was serious. "I am Sesshoumaru. Ask me something only he would know."

Kagome hesitated and then asked, "What were his last words to me?"

His eyes narrowed. "Will you remember me?"

Kagome's hear jolted again. She shook her head in denial, too afraid to believe. "You can't be," she said. "You just can't. He died. He died because I was weak."

"You promised you would." His voice was cold. "But you didn't."

Tears fell from her eyes. His voice, the coldness was just like the first time she had seen him. When he had tried to kill her. It was so different from the gentle voice she had grown used to hearing from him. The voice filled with love and concern.

"All these years you have not remembered me. Please, tell me why."

"I would be weak," she said quietly, "I couldn't be weak anymore. My weakness almost caused your death."

The ice left his eyes, and they became gentle again. She did not see it, for she had turned her head in shame. "You were strong when you had emotions. Without you, Naraku would never have been defeated."

"But…" She could no longer speak. Her throat was too tight.

"I forgive you, Kagome," he whispered, and suddenly she knew it was him. She had not told the stranger her name.

"Thank you," her words were soft. "But, how are you still alive?"

"Do you actually think that this Sesshoumaru would allow himself to be overcome by poison from a worthless half-breed?" he asked, a trace of his old arrogance creeping back into his voice.

Kagome laughed. This was the Sesshoumaru she knew. "But that tells me nothing about your markings. They were still there the last time I checked."

He chuckled. "I can hide my markings at will. Everyone would think I was crazy for having tattoos like that if I didn't. Now are you satisfied that it's me?"

After so many years of holding it all back, Kagome cried. He was there to comfort her, be there for her, letting her know with a gentle, deep, and caring voice that everything was all right. How she had missed that voice!

"If I were to disappear right now," he said after she had finished crying, several hours later. "Would you remember me?"

"Of course," she promised, eyes still full of tears. "I promise."

"I don't know," he replied, teasing her slightly. "Last time…"

"Last time was last time. I have learnt my lesson. Never again will I lock your memory away."

"That's good, as you will be seeing me every day."

"What do you mean?" Kagome asked, puzzled.

"I have moved into the house next to yours. We're neighbours now." was his casual reply.

**The End**


End file.
